Have you read Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People”? Do you regularly use the concepts taught? Come on, you can be honest with me. I think the #1 reason people don’t succeed on Social Media is because they forget the simplest concepts of business and making friends.

People do not like to be sold but they do like to buy.

Think about that for a moment.

People do not like to be sold but they do like to buy.

People want to buy, BUT they want to buy on their own terms stemming from internal motivation. Your job as a business owner is to provide that “internal motivation” without raising their defenses with pushy sales pitches.

Engage your friends, followers and connections by educating and entertaining.  Add value. Show them a good time.

What if you applied your people skills online in your social media networks? I’m going to venture your profits would soar.

The first step is to clean up your profiles. Make the message consistent and put a professional photo up. Use the same photo on every site and resist the temptation to hide behind a logo. People naturally prefer to interact with another person, represented by a human face.

In about 100 words on each, here is my advice for the 3 major social media sites:

Facebook is a social platform before it is a business platform. DO NOT SELL on your personal profile on facebook.  Instead do targeted ads to friends and fans and use your picture in your ad.  When people see your ad and see a picture of you they will read it and possibly click it. Once they have clicked they have “opted in” and asked you to begin providing information on your offerings.

Twitter is a fantastic consumer research tool. You can use a service like Hootsuite to automatically find any chatter about your industry or company. Let Hootsuite do the listening for you and follow up with those interested in your company.  Twitter is a real time conversation and lets you know within minutes if someone is talking about you or your company or about the product or service that you provide. Cool right?

LinkedIn is the biggest business community on the web.  When someone accepts your invitation to connect or you accept an invitation what do you do after? I always send a personalized note based on a script I have perfected. Using this exact script I went from 2 speaking engagements a month to 3 a week a week! This one technique lead to a massive jump in my business, now my biggest chore is invoicing paying clients.

I was asked to keep this article short and sweet. I objected and insisted it be long and sweet so I could pack in all my strategies and specific techniques. I lost the argument. I’ve worked with so many business owners that I now have many proven, easy to implement strategies for generating leads on social media and the reality is I couldn’t pack all my lead generation techniques into one article even if I was allowed dozens of pages.

Fortunately we came to a compromise and found a solution that would allow me to share all my best lead generation techniques with you!

I will be hosting a special webinar exclusively for InternetMarketing.com members. In this webinar I will reveal my most effective lead generation techniques and show you step by step how to apply them to your own business. Join me on Nov 17^th for this free one hour webinar. There is a limited capacity for the webinar and since it is completely free spots will be filling up fast. My last paid workshop sold out in just 6 hours and it cost hundreds of dollars. Don’t miss out, reserve your spot today:

>> Register for the webinar <<

Remember: Entertain, Educate and Add Value,

Owen Clark.

For the longest time we didn’t recommend doing that because the techniques were still unproven and not very effective.

Today, I can say that has completely changed.

Here’s a clip of a recent talk I gave to the Internet Entrepreneur Club members that explains how to use these tools to increase your list and your sales.

Watch it here now…

Click here to watch the video

Try it out this weekend and then let me know how it worked for you.

Have a great weekend!

Chuck Anderson & The IMC Team

P. S. Could you use my help with your business? Click this link to learn more about the weekly Internet Entrepreneur Club training webinars … click here for details.

Once you have built a community around your Facebook page, you’ll want to send your list regular status updates including interesting and useful information about your business. But what kind of information should you share with your community on this social networking site? That’s a question we often get from our subscribers.

Here are some ideas on how you can connect with people on this powerful social networking site…

• Send them announcements whenever you receive a new shipment of products.
• Let them know when you are about to hold a sale.
• If you’re an offline business, send pictures of your establishment, the location, your products, and people who enjoy your services. If your business has a nice view or is in a part of town where interesting events often take place, here’s your opportunity to showcase them and share them with a larger audience.
• If you’re an online business, share pictures of your work space, home, and even your family if you feel it’s appropriate. This helps to establish that you are a real person that they should want to do business with.
• Share your thoughts about events happening in your community or your industry.
• Post useful tips your audience will appreciate.
• Make exclusive limited-time offers available only to Facebook Fan members.
• Send friendly “suggest a fan” notices to your Fans asking them to spread word about your Facebook Fan page to their friends. (Note: only do this a few times a year maximum, or people might find it too spammy.)
• Link to articles you’ve written on your website blog.
• Invite readers to take part in informal surveys.

When you’re social networking on Facebook, make sure you offer a mix of limited promotional messages with lots of free info such as the tips, photos, and information on events. That way your friends on this social networking site will feel like you care about them and want to help and engage with them instead of only sell to them.

By sharing information like this on Facebook, the world’s most powerful social networking site, you will be able to grow your audience, showcase the best features of your business, and encourage people to visit your main site more often. By surveying them and asking them questions and really listening to their responses, you can also get great ideas for ways to improve your business and increase profits by giving your audience more of what they want and less of what they don’t.

Do you have any more questions about social networking sites? Share them with us in the comments.

the Web, period. In January 2009, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that if Facebook were a country it would be the eighth most populated nation in the world, even bigger than Japan. Facebook has more than 400 million registered users worldwide, and the numbers keep growing.

Facebook was originally conceived to appeal to students, but its flexible range of communication options has resulted in this social network becoming hugely popular among all demographics. In fact, according to iStrategyLabs, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is people over 55. Their numbers grew over 922% last year.

But how can you use this powerful social network to attract more customers to your business? Here are some tips…

How to Get Started on Facebook

The first thing you need to do is go to Facebook and create an account.

You will be given the chance to add a photo to your profile. Take advantage of it — on social networking sites such as Facebook, a picture adds credibility by proving you’re a real person or business.

It doesn’t have to be a picture of you. You might choose instead to use a picture of one of your well-known products or your storefront, depending on how you want to brand yourself on the social media you use. If you provide a service — say you’re a massage therapist or a notary public — you may prefer to include a picture of yourself for a more personal touch.

Once your account is set up on this popular social network, you need to create a Facebook Fan page for your business.

You can add all sorts of information to your Fan page, such as photos, videos, business info (such as hours, products, etc.) Add as much useful information to this site as you can.

Social Network Tip: Note that you can link your page to a Twitter account. This is a very useful feature so if you haven’t already done so we suggest that you sign up for a Twitter account under the name of your business right away.

Once you’ve done that, all of the updates you post on your Facebook Fan page will automatically get sent to Twitter as well. It’s a handy way to get your message out through two social networking sites at the same time.

When your Facebook Fan page is ready, you can start connecting with friends via this powerful social network.

You start by searching the names of your friends, family, and customers already on Facebook, and then sending them an invitation to be your friend. Then check to see if you can find other people on this social network by doing name searches or getting Facebook to search for people who went to your high school or college or current or past coworkers.

Once these people accept your friend invitation, you will be able to scroll through their lists of friends, and you will no doubt find other members of this social network whom you know and can ask to be your friend.

As you gain more friends on this social network, send them all a friendly suggestion asking them to become a fan of your Facebook Fan page. If you’re an offline business, you can also encourage more people to join your Fan Page by posting a little sign by your cash register saying, “Be our friend on Facebook! Join our Fan Page — [Name of Fan Page]” and even print the same suggestion on the receipts you give your customers.

What kind of information should you share on this popular social network? In our next blog post we will give you some ideas of the kind of information you should share with your Facebook friends. Be sure to check it out!

You need to carefully observe how people interact with each other on the social site and then follow their example. Then, once you feel you’re ready to jump into the conversation, you need to provide lots of useful free advice or other interesting information, so people appreciate your input.

What kind of information would they appreciate getting from you?

Here are some ideas…

• Company information and mission: Share who you are, how you got started in your industry, your passion for what you do and why you do it.
• Public relations-style information: Put the word out about new product releases, new product features, press mentions or awards you’ve received.
• Customer service details: Post common problem solutions, product bulletins, problem solving, best practices, training and tips for using your products. Don’t be scared to solve a customer’s problem publicly if they post it publicly. It’s not a bad thing for customers to see that you stand behind your products, and that you’re eager to solve problems.
• Customer stories (with permission): Share stories of people who have had positive experiences with your products, or have overcome difficulties as a result of using your products.
• Fun stuff: Post games, contests, fun pictures or videos related to your products or industry.
• Special deals: Create offers just for your social media “friends” — but not with a heavy pitch, please! Just a link with a discount code will do — let your site speak for itself.
• Feedback and research: Questions, polls and surveys targeted towards your community or customers can be a great way of getting great market research data, product feedback, and information about the right direction for your business to head next!
• Expert advice: Establish your expertise by answering common questions and offering valuable information in industry discussions and groups. That doesn’t mean you answer every question by pointing to your product (even if it seems like the most obvious solution)! You want to earn trust first… and let that lead naturally to sales.
• Thoughts about your industry: Share your own ideas about what’s happening in your industry through blog posts, microblogs and group posts. Start discussions that matter to you, and invite other people to share their ideas alongside yours.

Few people head to social media websites looking directly for items to purchase — but they do appreciate coming across companies that provide great information and great service. And if they are looking directly for product recommendations, your presence and solid reputation could put you at the top of everyone’s list.

Remember that the key to successful social media marketing is not to leave out the “social” — listen first, respond positively, and keep the conversation going!

If you’re just starting out with building your own online business, or you’re a lone entrepreneur with an established Internet business, it may seem like an overwhelming prospect to get involved with social media.

Where will you find the time? How will you get started?

Well, we’re going to suggest a simple and foolproof way to get started with social media that doesn’t require you to know a ton about social strategies — all you need to know is your business!

Start a blog on your website (most website hosts offer a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to get the ball rolling) where you post information and thoughts about your industry, and then set up profiles on Facebook and Twitter to link back to your posts and ideas.

The posts don’t need to be super-long or detailed, either — you can do a simple “how to”, or offer an opinion on a big development in your industry, or even share a quick story about how you solved a problem for a customer with your product.

But remember — ONLY post information — no pitches.

Then, once you’ve built up some content and some inbound links from social sites, start joining groups on these sites related to your industry, and “friending” and following people who are in the groups.

But again, don’t pitch them. Just take part in the groups by providing great information, and let people click through to check out your blog and your website on your own.

And they will.

That’s right: even though you’re not pitching, people will seek out your business ANYWAY, once they’ve connected with you at social sites.

In fact, the lack of pitch leaves them feeling at ease, and sets up a solid foundation of trust between you and your potential customers.

If your fellow members are intrigued by what you have to say, they’re much more likely to come check you out… especially if they aren’t pushed or cajoled to go there.

And on top of all this great relationship building, you’ll see a definite boost in the search engines because of all the freshly updated content you’re posting on your site, and the quality inbound social links.

Two big wins for a single strategy!

Remember: on the Web, your credibility is your calling card, since none of the business that is done goes on face to face. It may seem like a waste of time to give out free information and ideas — but a great reputation is priceless in Internet marketing!

Here’s what else he said: “The last tip I just received was to look into social networks for boosting traffic… duh! Come on Guru’s, [sic] it’s old news… actually after digging through your content, it’s all old news.”

Old news, huh?

Sure, the buzz about social media marketing has been around since 2006 — we were one of the first companies to start reporting on it! — but the fact is, many of our readers are new to the world of Internet marketing and don’t know a digg from a tweet.

And we feel it’s our responsibility to give them the information they need to start off on the right foot — even if that information is “old news” to some of you more experienced marketers out there.

Searching for the “latest killer strategy” that’s so hot you need to wear safety goggles just to look at it?

Better keep looking, then.

Sorry, but if you’re the kind of marketer who is always looking to jump on the bandwagon of the latest hot trend, you’re probably in the wrong place.

We don’t teach trends, we teach proven strategies that get RESULTS.

And we refuse to share any new marketing strategy with you unless we have exhaustively tested it to determine whether it actually helps real people make real money… as opposed to being some kind of elaborate pyramid scheme that only makes money for the handful of people who started it. Not that there are many of those going around the Internet. (Note sarcasm).

But that doesn’t mean we teach you outdated strategies that last worked in 2002!

The strategies we teach are constantly being tested and refined by our mentors. These folks are successful online entrepreneurs in their own right, and they work one-on-one with hundreds of clients every year, helping them make money in every industry you can imagine.

If we tell you something works, it does. It’s as simple as that.

… So does that make our information “old news?”

Maybe for the marketers who are making money hand over fist because they already have fully automated web businesses that target a thriving niche and are totally optimized for the search engines and have cost-effective PPC campaigns that are driving scores of eager buyers to their site and run sophisticated email campaigns that turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers and have used social marketing techniques to build up an active community of loyal customers who do their marketing FOR them.

… But if you haven’t quite managed to accomplish all of that with your business, we’re pretty confident our information can help you make more money online… and grow bigger, faster, quicker, without wasting money on any here-today-gone-tomorrow trends.

To your success, as always,
The Internet Marketing Center Team

In our last post on social media, we talked about how “social” and “community” have become huge buzzwords in Internet marketing — and how you can make the buzz work for your business.

There’s no doubt that social networking sites offer unique opportunities to build relationships and credibility — but did you know that you can use them to drive traffic to your website and improve your search engine ranking at the same time?

And blogging — the granddaddy of all social media activities — actually offers one of the best ways to build the quality inbound links that search engines love, and bring targeted visitors to your website.

The key is to provide lots of free, valuable content on your website or blog, and then repurpose or distribute that content across the Web through RSS, content syndication sites, social bookmarking and social networking applications.

RSS Feeds and Promotion

Create your feed. An RSS feed is a unique URL that your readers can paste into their preferred RSS reader to allow them to receive your content. You can create an RSS feed through your blog software. It’s easy to find out how to do this through their respective websites.

Or you can use services like FeedBurner (Feedburner.com) or FeedForAll (Feedforall.com) to generate a piece of HTML code you can insert in your blog template. Just go to your blog provider’s “Help” pages to find out how.

Promote your feed on your site. Once you have a feed, you have to show your readers how to subscribe to it. All you need to do is add a small piece of code that adds the universal RSS button to your blog. When a reader clicks on the button, they can subscribe to your blog’s feed, regardless of the feed reader they use.

Be sure to insert a short line of text above your feed icon encouraging people to subscribe. Include directions such as, “Subscribe to receive all the latest news by clicking the button below!”

Promote your feed on the Web. RSS isn’t just a way for your regular readers to access your content, it’s also a way to promote your blog to a wider audience by making sure that you are listed in some of the many RSS directories that exist online.

Some popular RSS directories include:

• 2rss.com
• w.moreover.com
• Syndic8.com
• Newsisfree.com

Content syndication/distribution sites

Content-syndication sites provide news and articles to thousands of other sites. Getting your article posted with them can be a great way to increase your visibility, and drive scores of visitors back to your site. Plus, the SEO benefits of thousands of sites posting your article will make writing the articles well worth your time.

To make this strategy work for you, simply include a link back to your website or blog in the signature file at the end of your articles.

Other sites offer you the opportunity to be a “resident expert,” offering how-tos and advice to people who search the sites for information. Your author bio then contains a link back to your website or blog.

This strategy benefits you in two ways: first, you get a top quality inbound link to your website; and second, if you use your targeted keywords in your advice and responses, your name will show up twice in search engine listings… once for your own site, and once from your post on these high-traffic, well-known sites!

Here are a few of the more popular content syndication and distribution and “how-to” sites that we recommend you check out:

• EzineArticles.com
• FreeSticky.com
• IdeaMarketers.com
• HubPages.com
• Suite101.com
• eHow.com

Social bookmarking sites

At social bookmarking sites, people save links to their favorite websites or articles, the same way you might save bookmarks in your web browser. With social bookmarking, however, they’re able to share these links with others using the bookmarking.

These sites also give you the opportunity to discuss and comment on links. When you do that, you can include a link to your personal profile, which can contain a link back to your own site.

So whether you’re sharing links or commenting on other articles, you’re always directing traffic back to your site or blog!

Some of our favorite spots to share links include:

• Squidoo.com
• Yelp
• Stumbleupon
• Delicious
• Reddit
• Digg
• Sphinn

One more note: Sites like Digg receive millions of visitors a day — so if someone shares your link and others enjoy it, you could end up with tons of traffic headed your way!

Social networking sites

Finally, don’t forget to link back to your website on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter!

You can link to new content on your blog or website in your Twitter updates, or add an RSS feed to your Facebook profile. That way, all your “friends” on these sites have the opportunity to click through and see what you have to say.

Search engines count these links as relevant inbound links to your content — AND, since the folks clicking through have already formed a connection with you, they definitely qualify as quality, targeted traffic to your site!

Check out the latest figures from analytics website Compete:

That’s right — Facebook sees more than a BILLION visits every single month!

So what’s the deal with all these “social” sites, anyway?

There’s no doubt that social networking strategies are the hottest thing going right now in the Internet marketing world — partly because there are so many new sites and software types and methods springing up all the time, and partly because there’s a lot of testing going on to figure out what social networking strategies best suit what types of business.

And that’s really something you CAN only find out by testing strategies alongside your business.

One of the most important benefits of getting “social” online is the chance to interact with your current and potential customers — and even your competitors in a low-pressure setting that encourages conversation.

You can use social sites to:

• Get to know your market better, including their needs and wants
• Answer questions from present and future customers
• Respond to concerns or issues before you end up with “bad press”
• Stay in touch with what your competitors are up to
• Build a strong community of loyal, lifelong buyers

And that’s just scraping the surface of the possibilities!

So can I just hop on and start selling?

Not quite!

One of the biggest challenges for many marketers is figuring out how to build a presence without making a direct pitch — something that they’ve been trained to do everywhere else, but an approach that rarely flies on social sites.

That’s why we encourage our customers and clients to focus on building credibility. That’s right — instead of directly promoting your business, focus on sharing valuable information that your customers and colleagues can actually use!

By doing that, you become an authority in your industry and a sought-after expert.

But here’s the best part: people will seek out your business ANYWAY. In fact, the lack of pitch leaves them feeling at ease, and sets up a solid foundation of trust.

You can use this credibility and buzz-building strategy on almost any social networking site, from a blog to posts on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, all the way to discussion hotspots like forums and Yahoo Groups and Google Groups.

Instead of directly mentioning or promoting your business, make sure that when users click through your ID to your profile or personal page, they can clearly see the URL of your business site.

But when will they buy from me, then?

If they’re intrigued by what you have to say, they’re much more likely to come check you out… especially if they aren’t pushed or cajoled to go there. From there, make sure you have a compelling opt-in to catch their information, even if they’re not ready to buy that day.

That way, you can follow up with them via email, as well as on the social networking platform.

Remember: on the Web, your credibility is your calling card, since none of the business that is done goes on face to face. It may seem like a waste of time to give out free information and ideas — but the foundation of trust and terrific reputation you are building are nothing short of priceless!

And be sure to connect with IMC on social media websites…

Some of our most popular profiles and groups:

• Facebook Group and Business Page
• Twitter
• LinkedIn Profile and Group
• Warrior Forum Profile

And stay tuned for Part 2: Search Rankings and SEO Strategies!

By meeting up with you on Twitter and Facebook and in forums and on blogs, we get a chance to check out what YOU’RE up to, and what YOU’RE talking about.

And that’s why we wanted to share with you a few of the spots we’re at so far… come meet us!

Our Internet Marketing Center Page on Facebook

Our Internet Entrepreneurs Group on Facebook

Our Twitter Stream (@ us to say hello! We’ll follow you back!)

Our YouTube Channel for Search Marketing Labs

Also look for us on the Warrior Forums — we’re “InternetMarketingCenter”.  Add us as a friend!

We’ll have more links to share in the coming month, and more places to connect with us — but make sure you take a moment to find us today at the places we’ve mentioned already.

And say hello — we’re glad to meet you!